


I killed a part of me to keep you alive

by donutcats



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, I have a lot of love for twin relationships, major spoilers for ep 44
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-12
Updated: 2016-03-12
Packaged: 2018-05-26 04:32:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6223969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/donutcats/pseuds/donutcats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“When you were-” Vax’s voice catches, stumbles on the word.</p><p>“When I was dead.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	I killed a part of me to keep you alive

**Author's Note:**

> yes hello I'm Ryn and I live off of character angst. It keeps me young and revitalized. takes place almost directly after episode 44

That night, after what Vax can only call the Beholder Incident 2.0 and the Disaster that followed, he finds himself walking through the wide halls of Whitestone Castle. The carpet running down the middle of the hall is soft against his bare feet, the crimson fibers cushioning each step.

That’s all he can think of it as. The Disaster. A vague title that feels detatched, like he’s reading it from some history book, instead of calling it something much more personal and remembering that he was _there_. He swings wildly between letting the thought consume him, replaying every moment, every second where he should have been there sooner, and shutting down whenever it becomes too much.

The thought of Vex laying on the stone floor, unmoving, people gathered around her, cheeks wet- Vax slams a hand against the wall to steady himself, fingers trying to find purchase on the smooth stone of the hallway. The memory claws into his heart, gnashes its teeth into his arteries. He has to take a moment to catch his breath, because it feels as if he’s drowning on his own blood, on his own guilt. It’s filling his lungs, leaking out, dripping along his bones, leaving a scorching trail in its wake.

Once he’s taken his time to learn how to breathe through the thickness coating every inch of his insides, he continues down the winding halls, watching as the low sconces cast equally as low shadows. He runs his hand along the wall as he walks, fingers skipping over each door.

Another corner, another hallway, and then his fingers are wrapping around a doorknob, turning it ever so gently, slipping into the room without saying a word. It’s nights like this where he’s grateful that he can melt into the shadows seamlessly.

“No need to be so stealthy, brother. I’m still awake.” A voice greets him from the bed as he takes extra care in shutting the door.

Vax smiles, despite himself. “I didn’t want to wake you, just in case you _were_ sleeping.”

Vex rolls over, covers pulled nearly up to her chin. A large form on the floor grumbles, and Vax feels the warm breath against his ankles as he steps over Trinket, crawling into bed beside his sister. “I probably should be sleeping. I had a rather large day.” A signature Vex chuckle bookends her statement, the one that’s humorless and holds weight.

The covers shift as Vax moves closer, pushing away a stray pillow to lay his head directly next to his sisters. “You shouldn’t sound so casual about it.” His voice sounds strained, even to his own ears. Vex must hear it as well, because then her hand is clasping his.

“How else would you expect me to sound? Should I be crying and yelling, or sitting in a dark corner, depressed? One minute, that tomb felt as if it exploded, and the next, I was looking up into your tear streaked face, your whole body shaking. I will not let myself be consumed by something I can’t even remember.”

Her slender fingers brush along his knuckles, rubbing soothing circles into the skin. Vex always had a way of calming him down, and he supposes that’s only fair, seeing as how they’ve known each other their entire lives. It has always been her to calm him, because there is rarely a situation where Vex gets herself so worked up she can’t think straight. Vax, on the other hand. His entire life seems to be made of one giant Emotional Situation.

The feeling of her hand in his, of her bright eyes that pierce through the dark in the room, her breath fanning across the pillow; it causes the thing mauling his heart to let up for a moment. To know that she’s here, now, her own heart beating a steady rhythm, it fills his lungs with much needed air.

“When you were-” Vax’s voice catches, stumbles on the word.

“When I was _dead_ .”  
  
He makes an appreciative noise, continuing. “I don’t know how long you were, gone, exactly. It all blurred together. But, it felt like eternity, and in that eternity, I felt _empty_. Completely empty. Like, the second I saw you there, on the floor, a part of me vanished. I lost myself in that one moment.”

A tear finds itself across the bridge of his nose, mingling with the others that are slowly dampening his side of the pillow. Vex’s eyes don’t leave his, as if she’s silently telling him to keep going. Like she wants to hear how fucking hard it was for him.

“You were dead and my entire heart felt like it was ripped from my chest.” The words are quieter than before, whispered into the still air of the bedroom. “And then, you came back. You gasped, and that sound seemed to, just, messily shove my heart back into the empty space.” Vax pauses, remembering the hallway, how to breathe through whatever decided to take up residence in his lungs. “You sat up, as if nothing happened, and then Keyleth, she put her hand on my back and- it was too much. It grounded me, but too quickly.”

Vex’s fingers still in their calming movements. “Is that why you left? You didn’t say a word, and then you just stormed off into the hall.”

Moonlight streaks in through the large window, and it reminds Vax that it hasn’t even been a day since the Disaster. It’s literally only been less than a handful of hours. The tears are heavier now, the reminder that five hours ago his sister was gone, it makes the thing sink it’s teeth even deeper, as if it’s trying to tear a chunk out of his heart.

“I left,” Vax’s voice is breathier than he would like, so he takes another minute to scrub at his cheeks, find his voice. “I left because, I was afraid. Your confused smile and Keyleth’s hand, it brought me back from the brink of _something_ , and I was afraid Vex. I was afraid of how utterly empty I felt. Of how I would do anything to save you, because I can’t imagine a life without you.”

“Vax-”

“I was ready to exchange my own life for yours, sister. To die in your place if I was able. I still stand by that, but it shakes me all the same. I was ready to stand down a fucking  _Goddess_ to get you back. And I wouldn’t change that decision no matter how many chances I was given to try.”

Another stretch of silence, as the words seem to set in for Vex. Her arms reach forward, wrapping around Vax, pulling him closer until his forehead lightly knocks into her collarbone. “I would have exchanged my life for yours.”

“And then it would have been an unending cycle.”

 

===

 

The next morning, Vax shuffles his way out of his sisters room, following the hallways until he finds his way downstairs, a helpful maid pointing him in the direction of the dining hall.

He’s greeted by the sight of his friends, gathered around the large table, passing around platters of breakfast, several conversations bleeding into each other. Vex immediately catches his eye, sitting between Zahra and Percy, laughing and allowing Percy to fill her plate with pieces of bacon.

Vax grabs a plate from a rack set to the side and makes his way to the other end of the table, where the only empty chairs are. He pats Vex on the shoulder as he walks by, giving her a slightly tight smile and a warm “Morning, stubby.” Before she can reply, he slips into a chair, a few empty ones between him and his group.

Last night is something he needed, probably. To get those thoughts off his chest and to just fall asleep with his sister, to be able to feel her breathing and stamp down any panic that tried to worm its way up his throat. There was a sliver of that panic that slammed into him when he woke up, in the bed alone. But then he noticed the daylight pouring through the window, the soft sounds of the castle coming to life. He remembered where they were and the panic melted away.

The table shaking snaps him out of his thoughts, and when Vax looks up he sees Grog, animatedly telling Cassandra about how Bigby’s hand fastball specialed him right into the face of the Beholder. Vax can’t help but smile as he turns back to his food. In spite of the absolute horror that was the Beholder, some cool things did happen.

His plate trembles again, but instead of seeing Grog pounding a fist onto the table, there’s a flash of green and red, and then Keyleth is sitting next to him, in one of the chairs between himself and the group.

“Good morning.” Keyleth greets him, busying herself with grabbing a platter close to them. It’s a touch forced, laced with the same awkwardness that tends to seep into every conversation they have. Vax nods in reply, watching as she fills in the empty spaces on her plate. She turns to him then, and starts filling the emptiness of his plate, without ever asking.

Vax allows it, because even through the gloom of his mood, he finds it endearing. How she tends to not think straight when she’s worrying or nervous or both. She's very clearly both.

Once both plates are filled to her standards, Keyleth sits quietly, hands in her lap. She opens her mouth a few times, like she’s about to say something, but then closes it without so much as a sound. She picks her fork up, puts it down. Plays with the ends of her hair before tucking it all behind her ears.

"Just ask." Vax sighs, knowing she wants to say something but can’t find it in herself to ask, like she’s afraid to step over some invisible line.

Keyleth seems to let out her own sigh at that, shoulders sagging forward just the smallest bit. “I just want to know if you’re ok.” Her voice is quiet, directed at him alone.

It strikes him, in that second, that she’s worried about him. Genuinely worried about his well being. It shouldn’t be a surprise really, Keyleth worries about everyone, because that’s just how Keyleth is. But for some reason, he wasn’t expecting her to want to make sure he’s doing fine. Shouldn’t she be fretting over his sister? He’s not the one that- that _died_.

A small part of his mind wonders if that’s true. _Didn’t you? Your twin laid lifeless in your arms, cold to the touch. It took the power of three Gods to bring her back. Didn’t a part of you die that day as well?_

The feeling of Keyleth’s hand slipping into his startles Vax. (The same small part in his mind wonders if that’s how she felt at the Sun Tree.) She’s looking at him, eyes wide and searching. “It’s ok if you’re not. Ok, I mean. It’s ok to not be, well, ok.” Her voice trails off at the end, as she realizes she doesn’t know exactly where she’s going with this. It causes Vax to smile, just a touch.

Scanlan’s loud laughter travels around the room, bouncing off the high ceiling, mingling with Pike’s quieter, melodic giggles. Scanlan’s finger is resting on his top lip, as he leans across the table towards Cassandra, voice dropping into his Burt Reynolds timbre as he retells a tale of his own.

“I’m not ok.” Vax stares at their hands, tracing the shape and curve of Keyleth’s fingers with his eyes. Her hands are much more slender than Vex’s, her fingers and palm much smoother, no signs of calluses. They both have dirt under their nails, and Vax focuses on that small detail which they have in common as he calms his breathing. “I watched my sister- I watched her _die_. It felt like, half of myself died. It felt like watching my own resurrection. I am very far from ok.”

Keyleth’s other hand comes up, covering his own in both of hers. “She’s here now, though. You’re both ok, relatively speaking.”

“Every time I close my eyes, I just keep thinking- what if we didn’t, succeed? What if she never came back? What the _fuck_ would I have done?” Vax practically spits the last sentence, voice harsh and low.

Keyleth tugs on his hand, pulling it closer, holding the tangle of their hands to her chest. His knuckles rest in the space between her collarbones, and when she speaks he can feel the vibrations through his skin. “Stop it.” Her voice is equally as harsh, stern in a way that commands his attention. “Stop dwelling on the _what ifs_ Vax. If we only thought about the things that could have gone differently in our lives, we would never have room to think of anything else. It sounds cheesy as hell, but, well, we should focus on the _what is_ , instead.”

“You’re right, that’s terribly cheesy.”

“Vex is alive. She’s laughing and breathing, and alive. Focus on that, on everything you have instead of everything you could have lost.” Keyleth leans towards him, still holding his hand against her chest, and she sounds so genuine it honestly causes Vax’s chest to ache.

Silence once again slips into the space between them, as she waits for him to say something, anything. But he can’t, he can’t find any words that would correctly describe what he’s feeling. He’s, grateful. That’s the word he’s looking for, maybe. But it still feels bigger than that, bigger than just grateful for his sister’s beating heart, for Keyleth’s complete understanding. There’s so much more to it, something that’s beyond simple words.

Keyleth takes his silence the wrong way, as she drops his hand gently back to the table. “I’ll leave you alone now. Just, I hope you know, you’re not the only one hurting. Think about what I said.” The chair makes a soft scraping noise as she pushes away, and Vax swears he hears a very faint hiccup in conversation.

Without thinking, he reaches out, catching at the same hand that was holding his just a moment before. “Wait.” She does, chair half pushed in, bright eyes boring into his. “Stay, please.”

As she sits back down, pulling her plate closer as they both remember their food, he catches his sister’s eye across the table, in the midst of Zahra talking to her. Vex arches an eyebrow, quirks a smile.

“Thank you,” Vax whispers, squeezing Keyleth’s hand. She returns the gesture, smiling into her cup. It takes him a moment, and a deep breath, to realize the monstrous thing gnawing at his organs has gone still and quiet. 


End file.
